2011年4月25日星期一

THE GUANTÁNAMO files: judging risk of detainees, often with flawed evidence

Relations between guards and inmates at Guantánamo are dangerous cooperative.

WASHINGTON - Said Mohammed Shah Alam, an Afghan of 24 years who has lost a leg in adolescence, said interrogateurs in the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, that he had been enlisted by the Taliban as a driver before being detained in 2001. He was caught, he said, that he tried to "save his younger brother of Taliban."

These articles are based on a huge trove of documents secrets leak last year in organizing anti-secrecy WikiLeaks and available for the New York Times by another source on condition of anonymity.Editors and journalists who have worked on these articles will be select replying to questions on the coverage of the subject.

Raw military analysts. Mr. Shah, who had been fitted with a prosthetic leg by prison physicians, was "cooperation" and "expressed the thoughts of violence or threats made to the United States or their allies," according to a 2003 friendly evaluation. His conclusion: "" detainee does not pose a future threat to the United States or U.S. interests. ""

Thus in 2004, Mr. Shah was sent back to Afghanistan - where he proves himself to be Abdullah Mehsud, a born activist in Pakistan and began plotting mayhem quickly. He recorded videos jihadist, organized a force of Taliban to fight US troops, planned an attack against the Minister of the Interior of Pakistan which killed 31 people, oversaw the kidnapping of two Chinese and finally fact engineers exploded a bomb suicide in 2007such as the Pakistani army closed in. His martyrdom was hailed in an audio message by none other than bin Laden.

Guantánamo analysts complete misinterpretation of Abdullah Mehsud was among hundreds of classified assessments of inmates in the prison of Cuba which have been obtained by the New York Times. The non-redacted assessments give more complete public image to this day to prisoners detained at Guantanamo Bay over the past nine years. They show that the United States had imprisoned hundreds of men for years without trial based on a difficult and remarkably subjective evaluation of who they were, what they had done in the past and what they could do in the future. 704 Evaluation documents use the word "maybe" 387 times, "unknown" 188 times and "misleading" 85 times.

Considered with the decisions of judges on legal challenges by detainees, the documents reveal analysts sometimes ignored serious flaws in the evidence - for example, that the information came from other inmates whose mental illness makes it unreliable. Some assessments cite witnesses say they saw a prisoner in a camp run by Al-Qaeda, but fail to record of the witnesses of lying or misidentification. They include admissions of detainees without recognizing other government documents showing that the statements were withdrawn subsequently often attributed to torture or ill-treatment.

A growing distrust

Written between 2002 and 2009, the evaluations reflect a growing mistrust on the part of analysts of Guantánamo. As early as the, reports are just a page or two and often optimistic in tone. In 2008, after scorching advertising on released detainees who joined Al-Qaeda and the decrease in the prison population hardened inmates, assessments are decidedly more conservative.

For all cases where an Abdullah Mehsud - someone wrongly deemed a threat to minimum - there are several instances where rated "high risk" prisoners were released and are not engaged in reprehensible acts. Murat Kurnaz, a German resident of Turkish origin, was found in an evaluation of 2006 to be a member of Al-Qaeda who fell into the most dangerous category: "high risk" and "likely to pose a threat to the United States, its interests and its allies."

Nevertheless, the US authorities, under pressure from the Germany and the Turkey, dismissed analysts and sent Mr. Kurnaz Germany home three months later. He has not joined the global jihad but rather became a prominent critic of Guantánamo, written a book and media to countless appearances to denounce the American prison.

Among the more revealing of the disclosure of documents is a 17 page guide for analysts, obviously prepared by trainers of military intelligence, on how to assess the danger posed by an inmate. It lists the major groups of detainees, including the so-called 30 sale, which were the bodyguards of Mr. bin Laden, as well as the large group of officers accused Qaeda captured with Abu Zubaydah, a terrorist facilitator important, two pension of FaisalabadAu Pakistan, in 2002. It lists nine mosques associated with Al Qaeda, in Quebec, Milan, London, the Yemen and Pakistan.

The guide shows how analysts seized on the smaller details as a possible test for risk. If a prisoner had a Casio F91W watch, it may be an indication, he attended a course to make bombs of Qaeda where these watches were presented - while this model is sold to date worldwide. (In the same way, a Yemeni prisoner assessment suggests a disastrous use for his pocket calculator: "Calculators can be used for calculations of indirect fire, such as those needed for artillery fire.")

Taken prisoner without travel documents? It could mean that he had been trained to make them more difficult identification, the guide explains. An inmate who claimed to be a simple farmer or a Cook, or in the business of honey or the search for a woman? Those that were common of the Taliban and Qaeda cover stories, analysts have been informed.

And a classic catch-22 situation: "Refusal to cooperate," the guide explains, is a technique of Qaeda resistance.

Yet, the guide seems to be the fruit of years of experience in trying to transform the bits of evidence of variable reliability into a conclusion. In particular, he cites as a narrative enlightening the error of assessment at the beginning Abdullah Mehsud, the suicide bombing Pakistani, who had said he was forced to join the Taliban. It was "an example", the guide explains, "" of a detainee who has successfully applied the history of the coverage of conscription as a means of ensuring its warning of the U.S..""

Scott Shane reported Washington and Benjamin Weiser to New York. Reports, contributed by Charlie Savage of Washington and William Glaberson, Andrew w. Lehren and Andrei Scheinkman of New York.


View the original article here

没有评论:

发表评论